

Age of Empires: Online
August 2011 (14 years ago)
Age of Empires Online is a multiplayer online real-time strategy game developed by Robot Entertainment and Gas Powered Games, which released on August 16, 2011. Based upon the gameplay of the Age of Empires series, it was originally developed by Robot Entertainment, but on February 24, 2011, Gas Powered Games, took over production. The game was published by Microsoft. The game was free-to-play—it was free for users to play, though premium content could be earned or purchased, such as access to special items and blueprints, and more quests and features. On March 27, 2012, the game premiered on Steam after a major overhaul patch which addressed complaints of an "MMO-like grind" and many other features, along with the debut of the Celtic civilization. On June 15, 2012 the premium content system was changed to offer the option to purchase all past and future content through "Empire points" earned in game, or by purchasing the points directly with real world money. As of January 3, 2013, Microsoft ceased further development on the game. A Microsoft representative later announced on the forums that on August 22, 2013, the Games for Windows – Live Marketplace would be shut down, leaving the game only accessible by current or former players. In September 2013, it was announced that the game would remain functional until July 1, 2014 when the service would be shut down. The closure was due to the content being too expensive to maintain. In 2017, Age of Empires Online was reestablished using Microsoft's publicly released developer-kit for the game and is now hosted on a server emulator known as "Project Celeste". The game can be played for free in single-player and multiplayer mode with all online features fully enabled. In May 2019, the team announced that they are developing Microsoft's unreleased Roman civilization for play based upon all known data of the civilization before the official servers were closed. It was finalized and released on March 14th, 2021
Estimated Daily Players
We estimate that Age of Empires: Online has currently around 1.5k players daily.
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Month | Social Score | Change |
---|---|---|
July 2025 | ~915 | 46.1% |
February 2025 | ~1.7k | 3.1% |
January 2025 | ~1.8k | 3.5% |
December 2024 | ~1.7k | 11.8% |
November 2024 | ~1.5k |
Age of Empires Online originally launched in 2011 with Microsoft as publisher, but official servers shut down in 2014. A fan project, Project Celeste, has since revived and maintains the game for a small but active community. The daily player count is quite modest, as is typical for fan-run revivals of older strategy MMO-lite games, likely in the low thousands based on community activity and recent social engagement.
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